


the dollmaker

by RyeFo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Dark Comedy, Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyeFo/pseuds/RyeFo
Summary: “Do you love your job?”Her eyes glint, like the silver key she wears around her neck. “Oh yes,” her voice goes lower, “I find it to be the second-most beautiful thing in the world.” She reaches over and presses my nose like a button. “You are the first, of course.”(or: every Halloween, the dollmaker comes back into business.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	the dollmaker

**Author's Note:**

> i don't really publish original works very often, so i hope you enjoy this? ^^ this was originally for a creative writing portfolio for university, now slightly edited.

**Mama, mama, the doll maker.**

-

For as long as I can remember, Mother never let me touch her silver shears.

Here I am four years old, learning now that _actions_ have a silly little clause called _consequences_ which, for a child, is a horrific thing. I wander into her room and look around; her high heels are fine to touch, her make-up fine with me to draw with, which means I need to find something else forbidden to entertain me. I will, as a four-year-old, accept no less.

Her bed is always messy—even though she will tidy mine and keep the house clean, the bedsheets are always rumpled and unkempt. I remember the smell of metal rising from the sheets, once. She told me not to worry when I asked once. When I stand on it, little red droplets stain the mattress as the sheets peel back.

I see them glinting on her dresser, silver catching the glare of the moon.

 _Shiny._ My eyes bug.

Mother would later tell me that she knew when I entered one of these moods; because _grabby hands_ reach out like little pincers. I stand on the bed and reach forward, fingers barely brushing against the silver—

“Darling,” I remember the tone of her voice; sharp, blunt, tinged with affectionate amusement. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“N-Nothing!” I stutter, like that answer absolves everything. For my mother, mostly, it did. She comes into her bedroom and sweeps me up into her arms, staring down like she’d caught the cat trying to get into the cream.

She shakes her head and sits me down on her lap. “Not those, my dear. Those aren’t for you to play with yet. You are far too little.”

“Why?”

Her painted-red lips split into a smile. I always thought it was lipstick staining her teeth, but her breath smelled metallic too. “Because, little one,” she says, embracing me tighter to her, “you need to have a moment before I can trust you with something like them. One day, though. One day, you will see.”

(One way to gain a toddler’s trust; confuse them with hopeful promises and confusing analogies.)

* * *

Let’s slip into the skin of myself, now five years old and a full half-inch taller; mother squeals one day at the sight of freckles dusting my nose, and I realise that most children have a thing called _fathers._ Mine was never around, though; whenever I ask, Mother just cuddles a doll and looks very sad.

I’ve seen these dolls. Whenever Halloween comes around, many people like to put them on their doorstep. Nobody knows where they come from; I hear whispers of a _dollmaker,_ but nothing ever really results from asking.

Mama’s doll that she cuddles when she thinks of my Father is starting to turn black and smell. I can see thick black stitches around the neck and arms, and the fabric it’s made of is stretched over something.

The eyes are still intact. Big, bright green eyes, far too big for the tiny head. Most other dolls don’t have _these_ kinds of eyes. Whenever they do, Mama says they’re the more expensive ones.

When summer comes around, Mother tends to get far sicker than she usually does. I, too, inherit this; staying out too long will blister my skin and burn me from the inside. As a child, it did not affect me as much, so I could wander as I pleased if Mother could spy me from her workshop window.

Now that _actions-have-consequences-if-bad_ is a real-world philosophy I must abide by if the face of _I-want-things-I-deserve_ is to become a consistent pattern, as a five-year-old, I already know the definition of good.

So, obviously, what is a better way to be good than to go into Mama’s office and do the _sig-na-tore_ pictures that she does all over her _pay-per-werk_? She’s always complaining that it takes too long, so naturally, I thought, _I’m helping!_

I go in, armed with a pink permanent marker, finding the bad thing that keeps my Mother up all day. I don’t know how to count, but the entire pile is cut down the middle when the clock next strikes, so it must be a lot.

I hear Mother talking about this a lot, and five-year-old me has plenty of opinions. I don’t like the way she has so many _custom orders;_ how her hands have so many little cuts and pinpricks; how I hear Mother displeased with the lack of manners coming from all the deliveries whilst she’s begging for Halloween off to spend with me.

(Five-year-old me _also_ lifts these words verbatim from one-sided phone calls listened to through closed doors; she has no idea what all these words mean, but they sound bad, so _must be bad._ )

Mother comes in when I am half-way through and stops dead at the sight. “Mother!” I smile, holding it up. “Look! I did all the papers work for you!”

For the first time in my short life, I learn that two emotions can exist on a face at once: Mother has regret and horror freezing her expression.

* * *

I get my first pair of bronze shears at the age of six. I remember the day as clear as if it were my reflection in my Mother’s eyes.

My dolly shoes squeak as I clap them together, crimson sheen glaring at the presence of the full moon.

One of the men that deliver for my Mother’s job is haggling her about something again in her workshop—I hear _dead_ and _lines,_ maybe those are supposed to be grouped together, but it leaves Mother seething and baring her teeth at them until he runs with his tail between his legs.

 _He’s so rude,_ I pout and jut out my lip. _He never says anything to me._

Mother comes and sits next to me on the floor, her flask filled with red juice. She takes a sip and wipes her mouth, her apron covered in it. She always looks so sleepy like this.

“Mother,” I say, scrunching up my nose, “I don’t like that man.”

“Neither do I,” she laughs, resting her head against the couch and smiling at me. “But, to do the things we love, we must suffer workplace bureaucracy.”

“Do you love your job?”

Her eyes glint, like the silver key she wears around her neck. “Oh yes,” her voice goes lower, “I find it to be the second-most beautiful thing in the world.” She reaches over and presses my nose like a button. “You are the first, of course.”

“Why can’t I ever go inside your workshop?”

“Mm…” She hums. “I’m waiting to see if you can appreciate what I do, sweetheart. My work is very important to me. If it isn’t as important to you, then I can’t show you.”

“Please!” I whine, fists bunching up the carpet. “It is! It really is! I wanna _see!_ ”

Mother seems to think to herself for a moment before she rises. She saunters over to the nearby chest of drawers and goes through Grandma’s old sewing kit, before pulling out an old pair of bronze shears, a few scraps of fabric, and a pamphlet. She puts them down in front of me. “Do you know what these are, my dear?”

“Sure.” I shrug.

“I want you to spend a day reading this,” she puts the pamphlet in my lap. “These are different cutting techniques. If you are still interested, we can practice. Does that sound fair?”

(In twenty-four hours to this memory, five-year-old me will obsess over the diagrams. In forty-eight, those scissors will become my most treasured possession.)

* * *

I am six-and-a-half when I receive my first doll.

Halloween is busy for my Mother—more for arguing with the men who come around for her job than her _actual_ job. She told me, once, that half of a workplace consists of arguing with higher-ups to do their job so you can do yours. This is the wisdom I stand by to this day.

“Sweetie,” she calls, “can you come here?”

I pout, not wanting to leave my practice; I abandon the scrap fabric with the clumsily marked incisions eventually when she calls me again. “Yes?”

“I have something for you.”

* * *

Sometimes, parents have little boundaries they set up. Dark little secrets that they wish to keep hidden. For my Mother, her job was not a source of shame; rather, she feared mixing the two beauties in her life. A darker temptation, she said to me.

It’s the middle of the day, and I am seven years old. Those bronze shears? In a week, I will lose them in the garden, I will cry, and mother will give me a pair of silver ones instead, and I will forget them. As I cross the threshold that separates the house from her basement workshop, I see her first mistake, and ghosts of old, idle curiosities shackle my better judgement to leave; _the door is left ajar._

Something pushes me. A spark in my feet. I crouch down, peer in, and see my Mother in her element. The shadows coat her in red and black; the light in the middle shows where she begins to carve her artistic mastery.

Strung upside down is a person. I’ve seen people before, but the way my mother stalks around it, I can hear her thoughts; _‘this one, though, oh, this is beautiful_.’ All this one does is follow the razor with those lifeless eyes. Up, down, just watching with those half-lid eyes as my Mother’s blade goes about skirting around the ankles.

Mother pauses for a moment, frowning at the area she’s cleaning up. She would later tell me that the ankle area is always the most prone to small little flecks, but it was no bother when her hands were in their prime. She told me if it ever did cut, she could just remove the entire ankle.

My breathing stutters. Mother cleans the razor in a small bowl of water, then her manicured hand hovers over the silver tray by the window. Clean, well-maintained tools laid neatly in rows, like matchsticks in a box. She taps a few, almost picks one up. She cups her chin, stroking it to help her thoughts along—

And then I see it. A familiar glint in her eyes; her lips splitting into a grin. 

Plucking a pair of silver shears from the top row, she gently saunters back over to her... it isn’t a person to her. Materials? That seems like a good word. She marks one spot with black ink, then measured downward with a nearby roll of tape-measure and made a spot at the desired end.

“Yes,” she says, “that seems most appropriate. We wouldn’t want to take too much off at once, though you aren’t particularly feisty.” She takes a step back towards it, smoothing her hand over the now-hairless jawline. “However, safety precautions first. We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong here, would we?”

Mother always said there was a spark she expected me to have and this—oh, I remember this.

Gently, Mother pries open the jaw and inserts a medical gag, letting it squeak until the bones locked in the desired space. My fingernails dig into the floor as Mother’s gently dragged along the skin, pinpricks of blood creating trails, and—ah, I can _smell_ the metal, almost taste it on my own tongue.

The best part of Mother’s job is how _beautiful_ the scents are.

“Please, hold still.” Her fingernails pierce into the fleshy muscle inside of the jaw, pulling it out as far as it would allow. I swallow something thick forming in my throat as my mouth waters. Mother marks another black line. “Yes, this seems _very_ good.”

A squelch came as soon as the scissors made their first _snip. Snip. Snip._ Cuts became jagged as those lifeless eyes suddenly widen in panic, head turning and grunting, and— _ugh,_ saliva drips from its mouth.

“I said—” Mother claws at its throat and peered into those green, green eyes. Such _pretty_ green eyes. A grin splits my lips; Mother’s shears split its skin. _“Hold still, please.”_

Sweat beaded off its brow. Mother leans in closer and whisper, _“_ Have some manners.”

Blood continues to pour from the person—materials— _whatever,_ it pours from its mouth. Trails down and drips onto the floor. I can see little strings of muscle resisting my mother’s shears, as she slowly plucks the muscle from the throat. Blood squirts, then drips downward, covering my mother’s apron. She does it so _elegantly,_ like a princess! It was so pretty, the way she was cutting—

The tongue detaches. She puts it on her tray and drops her scissors when she catches the light of my smile.

“Mama,” I say, breathless.

She watches me, a mixture of horror, and wonder on her face.

“Mama,” I say again, inspiration striking my mind like thunder. “I understand what you mean now. _This is beautiful._ ”

* * *

I am seven, and Mother sits me down. She’s frowning.

“I told you not to look in there.”

My mouth gapes. “I didn’t _mean_ to! You left the door open!”

“Then you should have turned around and left. Didn’t I raise you to be better than someone who sneaks around?” Mother sighs and massages her temples. “You can be so troublesome. Sometimes I wonder why I keep you around if you’re just going to sneak.”

The way her words aim at me makes me feel like she’s cutting me. I always tried so _hard_ to be good. “I-I—” I suddenly stand up and clench my fists. “You’re being so _mean_ to me _!_ All I did was look! You never tell me anyway, but you always have the men from your work over! I was going to find out _soon,_ you didn’t do a good _job_ of it being a big secret!”

Mother isn’t bothered. She never is. She waves a hand and sits me back down by pressing on my head. “Enough.”

I deflate, folding my hands in my lap.

“You were going to learn eventually. Do you know why I did that to that woman?”

I think it over. “You… like beautiful things?”

Finally, _finally,_ what I say pleases her. A little smile paints over the frown on her mouth. “Very good. Now, you know the special red juice we have to drink to make us strong?” I nod. “That,” she gestures to the people outside, “comes from humans. You know what blood is?”

“I…” I look down at my glass. “I’m drinking blood?”

“Somewhat. Mainstream blood outlets recommend we mix it with proteins and such. Better for you, a growing little girl. Perhaps growing a little _too_ fast.” She shrugs, but smiles wider, little fanged teeth poking out. “I just follow popular medical advice. Anyway,” she crouches down to my level. “We used to just… suck the humans dry and dispose of the bodies. Do you understand? We don’t do that anymore.”

I furrow my brow; everything is so _hard_ to understand right now. “We… need human blood. Can’t they just… give us some? They lose it all the time.”

“Ah, but that’s where _adaptation_ comes in, my darling.” Mother raises a hand. “See, we can’t just _kill_ all humans, because they are our food source. They, in turn, _fear us_ because we hunt them. Farming them doesn’t really work—unruly scoundrels that they are—so, what do you think we do?” Mother waits for me to finish.

I hug my knees and think it over. “We… oh!” My eyes light up. “We make a _deal_!”

“Exactly! Well done!” Mother hugs me tight; I smell the metal and it makes my mouth salivate. I suppose I know now why it made my tummy rumble. “Some people like to offer things like _assassinations,_ others become doctors. Or they sell themselves to capitalism. But I… wanted something more artistic. More of a small business than a conglomerate.”

“Artistic?”

Mother reaches into her apron and I _gasp._

In her hand is a small, skin-wrapped doll with bulging green eyes. The actual eye is protected by glass, and the skin is sewn together with several thick, black chords. The eyes take up half the head and slant unnaturally, hidden a little by wispy grey hair.

“This,” Mother says, “is a doll called Geraldine. She was made from a man called Nelson. The person who ordered this doll to be made was his wife, Marie.”

“You’re the dollmaker!”

Mother smiles. “I am. And this doll, darling, is yours.”

My hands begin twitching. “But—isn’t it for Marie?”

“Oh no, this was an incomplete order.” Mother sighs. “See, Marie’s best friend, Geraldine, has ordered a doll to be made from Marie, too, so these cancel each other out.”

“Oh.” I swallow. “So, I can have it?”

“As long as you do not sneak again,” she warns, “I will make you one whenever you please.”

* * *

Mother gets over her anxieties of mixing her work life and family; instead, she embraces me into it. Maybe this was her plan all along—she never _was_ an easy woman to read, except for her love for all things beautiful. I was never sure if I truly counted amongst those.

Imagine me now, nine years old, and a pink bow adorning my black hair. We visited a dentist a day before this memory, so my voice is now accompanied by a slight lisp—a hereditary quirk regarding my teeth, he had explained it at the time.

“Mom!”

I hear the fatigue in Mother’s voice. _“Yes, darling?”_

“The television’s broken again!” Annoyance creeps into my voice—it’s the _third time_ this has happened. “You said you’d fixed it!”

_“Did you try jigging the antenna?”_

“And adjusted the cables at the back of it. Again. For the third time this week. Nothing’s working!” I huff, sinking onto the couch and folding my arms. “I want to watch Coraline!”

 _“Don’t we all.”_ She mumbles under her breath.

Mother isn’t at all surprised when I fling open her workshop door, stomping in with furrowed brows and a jutted lip. She looks at me, helpless and exhausted. “Sweetheart, I’m _not_ an expert.”

“Then hire someone who _is!”_ Tears begin pricking at my eyes. “I waited all _week_ for this, _and_ I was good! You said I could stay up later to watch it if I was good!”

Mother sighs, crouching down to my level. She takes off her gloves and bunches up my hair, kissing the crown of my head. “I know I did, sweetheart. I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you now.” She gestures to the number of materials in her workshop. “Mama’s been very busy, it must have slipped my mind. Can you wait a little longer so I can _double_ fix it for you?”

My little-jutted lip began to wobble. “You _promised._ ” My eyes wander over the cleaned skins, the excess materials moaning in the storage closet. “Are you making more dolls again?”

“Mm-hm! I’ve been working hard, sweetheart. I’ve even made a new doll for you.” At this, I brighten and peer up at Mother as she went over to a nearby box marked _COMPLETE_ in red ink. “Would you like to see it? I _was_ saving it, but…”

“I wanna see! _I wanna see it!_ ” I ignore the gurgling cries and skip over to the box, trying to see over the brim on my toes. I clutch my fraying _Geraldine_ in her arms as I stretch and stretch but only grew more frustrated at my failure, at Mother’s amusement. “Mom, it’s too tall! Lift me up!”

“Or,” her mother grinned, “I could _give_ it to you.”

I pause, going back down on her feet and reached out with grabby hands. “Give me!”

“What’s the magic word…?”

“ _Now!”_

With a laugh, she reached into the box and pulled out the latest doll. Mother could never deny me anything when I smile like that at her. This new doll is _so beautiful,_ creamy-skinned, with thick-black stitching at the arms and legs, and beautifully large green eyes, shining from the moonlight that poured in through the small window overhead.

Mother would later confess to me the stress of making this doll; telling me it wasn’t all from the same source—the original materials had red hair, but I had _begged_ for a blond one, and she hadn’t managed to scrape together enough. Mother had to outsource from another local doll maker (much to her chagrin – Mother liked her originality) and got enough scraps to fashion a choppy pixie cut. There was no more red seeping from the stitching, however, and she had cleaned up the dried marks enough before dressing it in the woven cable-sweater and corduroy pants.

I _squeal_ in delight, eyes brightening as I smooth over its face. “It’s so pretty! What’s her name?!”

“Her? Oh, I didn’t know you wanted it to be a her.” Mother bites her lip nervously. “Well, its old name was… Jason. You can change it, though! Whatever you want it to be!”

“Well, maybe—” Small, pathetic sobs come from the hung-up materials. I remember the burning feeling in my stomach. My eyes slit, and I thin my lips. “Mom, I’m trying to think of a name for my new dolly. Can you get that to be quieter, please? It’s rude to interrupt someone when they are thinking.”

“Certainly, sweetheart.”

She went over and picked up a small needle—but before she got a chance to do anything further, I gasp, “ _Mama_!”

“Yes?” She stopped. “What is it?”

“Let me do it! Can I try and do it this time? I know you don’t like me doing this stuff much but _please!”_ I rush over and began tugging on her apron. “I promise I won’t make a mess again! Please? _Please?_ ”

Mother melts. “Go put the gloves on, then.”

The red gloves that Mother usually wore barely fit me at the time. My little, chubby digits sliding into less than half the space needed to make them functional. Yet, as I stand there with that little grin and jumping on her feet with her squeaky pink dolly-shoes, that is when that spark returned: _I need to learn everything_.

“Alright, come here.” Mother grabs a larger needle—bigger than what I know she would usually use—and holds it in front of me. “Grab it with both hands, okay? I want you to aim for where it seems like it’s tensing the most.”

I frown, confused. “Tensing?”

“Right. Where the muscle seems the tightest.”

“Oh!” I nod. “Yes. I can do that. Lift me, please?”

Mother obliges, hands underneath my arms as she picks her up, resting me on her hip. She brings me over and points at the tense nerve, bringing me as close as she dares (I knew Mother enough to know she didn’t want _saliva_ getting on either of us), and I could see my mother watching with proud fascination as I burn my gaze into the spot with slit eyes, sticking out my tongue as I beg my brain to concentrate.

There was nothing but a small squelch as I go about pushing the needle into its throat like it were a pin cushion—but I find my hands slipping and suddenly, blood _squirts_ all over my face and apron, gushing out of the pinprick like Mother left the sprinklers run amok.

“Oops.” She grinned sheepishly at her mother, tongue darting out to get the spots of blood near her mouth. “Sorry, Mom.”

“We all have slip-ups, sweetheart.” I giggle Mother wets her thumb and cleans the blood off my face. “Go wash on up, okay? I’ll be preparing for dinner later.”

“Can I play in my room for a bit?” I jump from her arms and picked up Geraldine and my doll. “I want to find a name for her first, then I can tell you!”

She laughs. “Alright but wash up _first._ And with soap. I’ll be able to tell.”

“Can I use your nice fruity soap?”

“Will it get you to stop answering me with questions?” With a cheeky grin, her I just nod. “Then okay. Go on and put the gloves back where you found them. I’m going to need them to finish off this one.”

* * *

Mama once told me that once, _once_ there was a time where art never crossed her mind; that she stayed in an office cubicle, eyes trained on a computer screen and fingers tapping away on keyboards like her bones had become puppet strings.

Really, it was fine with her, when she existed in that space. We all become drones of something eventually, she told me; you can claim you have passion for your job, your family, your social circle, but everything is tied to obligation rather than love, and haven’t you ever wanted to say, _fuck it?_

Haven’t you ever wanted to be _beautiful?_

So, one day after work, she stumbled into a gallery. It’s not an ornate, official gallery, but one I have heard through whispers—you can ignore our empire all you like, we all know it exists in some form, that you ignore it when someone you know is acting _a little odd,_ because _art is subjective,_ and that pertains to not only the end product but also how it is crafted?

Do you really care in the end?

_Do you care?_

No, it’s a gallery behind an alley and a wall of whispers—and she tells me that she has that moment. You know the one. The flash. The spark. Tendrils of inspiration that ooze, like strumming a guitar for the first time.

Except for this one. She remembered the piece. Fingernails sewed together in lace and heartstrings. Atop it, adorns a crown of feathers and braided hair. Blood has dried, dripping in a suspended motion and—

Oh, it is _beautiful._

The curator comes up to her and says as she stared at the piece, stroking her swollen belly, weighted with me as I grow into this moment, “My dear, I think we’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Won’t you join us for a while?”

Bill—or Will, his name still evades me—later told my mother that her smile was blinding when she tore my gaze from the piece. I hope this Bill he caught some of the light shining on her.

And now, I am years older. Mother is far too old to manage the workshop. Her hands don’t work the same way anymore. A shame, really. Now, I’m next in line to take over the family business. I need to be sure I am ready.

New material shipments are supposed to come in on the second Friday of every month, but like most supply-and-demand jobs, you must fork out extra payment when custom orders are involved. My suppliers ran a little later than usual—four hours rather than right-on-time but waiting for the shipment is an easier headache than dealing with management at this time of year.

And, yes, perhaps it is true that making sure the fresh delivery is still breathing is a chore, but it must be done they are to stay fresh whilst I go about my work.

The wrists come first, of course. Over my years of being in my profession, a rope is simply too coarse a material; prone to damaging the outer layer of skin—it twists around, red and raw, fraying, leaving scars on my already-limited stock. The holidays are always the worst season for commissions. Over the years, I have found that simple silver chains worked best.

This one hangs upside down, eyes rolled back, and face pale. This one isn’t a commission, though. This is personal. There is no blood with this one, but there’s a little, final gasp from the back of its throat.

“It’s alright,” I coo, crouching down and smoothing my hand over its cheek. “Don’t you know? Halloween is almost here. You’re going to make so many children happy with the dolls you’ll create.”

I hold up the silver scissors. I can feel my her eyes try and lift to stare at me.

“ _Aren’t you proud of me, Mother? Now everyone will be able to see how beautiful you are, piece-by-piece.”_

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on @outfoxedfire on twitter! please comment/leave kudos/bookmark if you liked this ^_^


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